


The Hunt

by divisionten



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Mystery, Puzzles, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divisionten/pseuds/divisionten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Quill receives a large sum of Terran currency from Yondu, he can't just trade it in for credits. He'll need to actually go to Earth to acquire supplies or things the Guardians could sell, but why were adresses mixed in with the bills? Could they even trust the Ravager's 'gift'?</p><p>This story also contains puzzle elements you can solve! Solving them all will lead you to additional story content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Proper Usage of Currency

Here I was, suffering one of the greatest indecencies of the last… eh, forget it. A lot of years. Some number I couldn't count off my fingers. And I didn't particularly want to remember in any semblance of vivid detail the honest LAST time it happened. I was outside, sitting on Peter's shoulder, my nails lightly digging into the back of his wheelchair, and the back of his slightly tattered leather jacket.

Naked.

Well, mostly naked. I was wearing a plastic jacket that covered my back, and a harness (bright, bright yellow, with a carabineer to attach to a lead), but it certainly didn't cover anything a sentient person would consider the indecent bits. Frankly, it made me uncomfortable, and looking back, I think I would have actually just preferred to have gone totally nude. Some species don't feel the need to wear clothes, and don't suffer any indignities- seen plenty of A'askvarii ladies chilling at the last outpost and nobody bats an eye (granted, I didn't want to think how much you'd suffer if you crossed the lot of 'em the wrong way). Hell, Groot barely wears clothes. A jacket or something around his vitals when we need to go somewhere he could get frostbite, but not much else.

But the harness? The harness made me feel like a pet, not a person. And I wasn't terribly fond of what was written on the jacket, even if I couldn't read it (Seriously. They need to start making eye implants for translating text. I shudder to think about going under the knife again, but that would actually be pretty useful.).

Quill adjusts himself in the wheelchair, and I can see he's probably just as uncomfortable with this as I am.

"Well?' he asks.

"Well what?" I whisper under my breath. Nobody's here, but Terra hasn't had much contact with non-hostile extraterrestrials. Granted, we didn't totally qualify as non-hostile ourselves, but we weren't exactly here to blow anything up. Yet. And I didn't want to be picked up by their science labs for any reason. Nope. Not. Going. There. I'm keeping my trap shut as much as possible, thanks.

"We going to do this?"

"You're the one who asked, jackass. But, yeah, I'm here. Let's just get it over with."

"Thanks, Rocket."

"Shut up, idiot. And you look like one, to boot. Let's move." He presses forward on the joystick and it shudders to life… slowly. Ugh. Terran tech (or "tech" in this case)- utter crap. Me passing off as his service animal seemed considerably more plausible now that I was seeing just how utterly Neolithic this stuff was. It's only a few hours of extreme self-conscience. I can do this.

And honestly? The light breeze felt nice through my fur.

* * *

"I… I think I'd like to take a pit stop on Earth for a day or two."

Quill ran his finger under the ridge of his eyebrow, something he did when he was seriously thinking about something (so, not particularly often, of course). Drax, who was putting away the dishes from dinner, almost dropped a plate on the floor. Not that it would have broken. China is a luxury you don't want to own on a spaceship. His reflexes were pretty quick- if a flying metaphor existed, he'd make small work of grabbing it out of midair.

Gamora, stretched out in a makeshift hammock over the engine's internal exhaust system, wasn't so lucky, dropping her cup with a loud hiss into the metal pipe.

"Terra?" she quipped "Your home?"

"Yeah."

"We want to make this official?" Drax asked, sliding the last plate into place and locking the cupboard and sink.

"Sure, why not," Peter responded, "Cargo hold in five."

Gamora flipped out of the hammock, putting her reading tablet away and picked up the rolling cup. I grabbed Groot's squirt bottle and wiped up the brown mess, then scurried down to cargo. Groot was already there, holding on to the bay door as he practiced hobbling in the larger open space. Regrowing an arm took a few hours, but it seemed that growing him back to normal from being blasted to smithereens would take a few months. But he was still here, and I shot him with the bottle in the face three times for good measure. Groot nodded.

I hated when Gamora sprayed me once with it, but he seemed to like it. Music helped, too. And he was mostly back to himself again, about Gamora's size and strong enough to hoist me on his shoulder again.

He steadied himself, and pulled out a pallet from the hold so I could sit at eye level to everyone else, using it as a brace as he pushed it to the center of the room. He flopped down to the left and waited for everyone else to arrive.

"I am Groot," he bellowed, interwoven with a series of rustles and clicks saying "/What's the mission, today? Nova?/"

"The idiot suddenly wants to go home."

"The idiot," Quill quipped, directly from behind, with Drax and Gamora right behind on the hatch, "wants to issue a contract."

Gamora locked the hatch and sauntered over to our makeshift Jackass Circle, now reserved for strategy meetings and final decisions on accepting a contract, patting Groot on the head with a gentle smile on the way. "What's the bounty?" The official start of any contract decision. We were going to do this like usual- abnormal in itself as we'd often take side trips between jobs as long as it didn't cost too much in gas. But if Quill wanted to treat it like a job as a way to force himself to visit home, so be it.

"Earth doesn't use credits."

"We don't do charity," Drax replied, squatting to my right. "No payment, no work. Your rules."

"I didn't say payment-free, just not credits." He picked up the ragged backpack of his childhood, and flipped it upside down. Stacks of white paper with greenish-black ink tied together by elastic tumbled out. "Yondu must have snuck this in my bag when he paid out the bounty for you guys bringing me in." If it were anyone else, I'd have made a crack that they would have probably spotted their bag containing weird pamphlets sometime earlier than three months out, but something told me Quill had been debating whether or not to say anything about the- presumably gift?- for a while.

"Paper?" Gamora asked, holding up and examining one of the stacks. Groot grabbed one and passed it to me for inspection as well. It had writing I couldn't read on either side, identical on all of them except for a small set of text on the front. Some kind of serial number, I guessed. An old humy pictured on one side, a building on another. Shining it up to the light showed an image through the paper that wasn't visible otherwise. Anti-counterfeiting measures? This stuff must be some kind of humy-

"MONEY. A lot of it. I had some in my bag when I was picked up as a kid, but not this much. This is like, thirty k? Thirty three thousand four hundred and twenty seven, the twenty seven being what I've been holding on to since Yondu kidnapped me," he said, holding out an additional four bills, in three different types. I tried running through my head what the denominations must be for the types laid out.

"So? We have the currency already, there should be no reason to stop on Terra." Drax stated, a bit pleased with himself.

"Actually, Quill's right. Depending on how much that's worth in supplies. At least canned food. Your planet's at least learned food preservation, right?" I asked, as I mused that three different paper types adding evenly to 27 could be a whole bunch of different things, depending on what kind of base system humy numerals worked off of. "I mean, tell me how the hell else we are going to cash that in. I haven't seen too many planets that still use physical currencies. What's 33K in Terran money worth anyway?"

"I was six. I could buy lunch for less than five, eating in a restaurant. And this stuff, it doesn't look like what I remember." He tugged one of the stacked bills out and laid it next to the four in his hand. "These are one dollar bills," he said, "a five, a twenty. Just green and white. But look at the hundred," (Damn! I was wrong. I thought humys worked in base 15, and the three bills in his hand were 1,1, 10, and 15) "It has orange on it. That's new. Actually, all the bills are new," he said as he quickly counted off something on his fingers, "Heck, they're from this year. And they have the right watermarks. Weird. Orange Benjamins. Never thought I'd see that. Either way, I know how much we're sitting on, but not what it could even buy us. For all I know this could be half a sandwich, or it could buy us food for a lifetime."

"I am Groot. /Inflation halving former value in thirty years sounds in the standard range, I'd say a back of the envelope calculation would give us about three years' worth of food./"

"Groot says it's probably enough food for us for three years. Personally, if Terra's got some tradable commodities- tin, copper, gold- we get ourselves a treat and stock up on that instead. Hell, I'm in. That's more than what Yondu gave us in credits, and he actually paid your flarking bounty." I untied a cord around my neck and threw my metal disc into the cup in the center. I'd voted in favor. Because, damn, if Groot was even close to right that was a LOT of money. Groot detangled a vine on his side where he held his, and let his disc slip into his hand, pitching it into the cup.

"If it's worth even half that, it's certainly worth it. And we're not going to have to put our lives on the line for it." Drax flicked his coin, bouncing it off the rim into the glass. Peter dropped his in too. We had enough votes, now, even if Gamora said no. Slowpoke has to whine if we already have four votes. Can't look like we agree on anything, even if we do. Because, damn. That's a lot of money. But we always go to the client with a nonunanimous decision. Even if the client happened to be standing right there and in on our system.

"It still smells like a trap," Gamora huffed. "Or that those bills are fake. At the very least your 'Daddy Dearest' has some kind of ulterior motive." She paused, uneasily. This didn't sound like she was being a nag just because she was the last to vote and it had already been approved. She genuinely sounded worried.

"This. This was in the stack I picked up." One of the pieces of paper in her stack wasn't like the others. It was all white with black writing. I flipped through my stack, a little more carefully. There was one in mine, too. Ten more of the stacks had papers in them, twelve total. We laid them out.

"Quill, this one's on you," I growled. I hate not knowing things. Makes me feel stupid.

"They're… addresses. They're numbered, too. One," he said, pointing to the straight line. "Two," pointing to the paper that had a symbol that looked like a chair without legs. He arranged them in what was likely their numerical order. After nine of the papers the single line symbol cycled around again with a circle after it. Base 10. Terrans did math in base 10. Who the flarg uses base 10?! Base 15 or 20 are pretty standard, but 10?

"I think its… a scavenger hunt. I don't know most of these places, but they're all in my hometown. And the eleventh one," he said, lifting up the slip of paper, "it's my house."

"That doesn't sound like a trap," Drax said, wincing at the papers and hoping he could suddenly be able to read them. "It sounds like Yondu left you a birthday present. I did that for my daughter one year. The last stop was our house, and there was a giant plush toy waiting for her."

"Yeah, but he already gave me the cash. The hell else is there? Also, in case you missed the memo, I'm not ten." No arguments on his birthday though. Wonder if it was his? I looked at the numbered pieces sprawled out and noticed the first one had something in Kree scrawled on it in the bottom left corner. Finally. Something I could read. It was a date- three days from now, to be exact. That's why Quill waited.

"Well, we already said we were going, might as well?" Gamora said.

"Might as well," Quill mused.

* * *

About 48 hours later, when we were entering the asteroid field around Terra's sun, Quill turned on cloaking and shut the lights. "We're early. I'm landing on an asteroid", he yelled back to the bunks, where Gamora and Drax were playing cards. "If anyone want to stay up to keep watch, go ahead. I'm getting some shut eye. We leave for Earth in eight hours." He yawned, threw his jacket and vest on a hook at the foot of his bunk, and rolled the curtain over it. Drax and Gamora shuffled their deck and put the cards and chips away, and did the same. I'd given my bunk up to Groot, and he'd gotten too big for the two of us to share. At full size, he hardly slept, but he'd been needing a full night's recovery while growing. Plus, I didn't want his thorns up my ass if he rolled over. Those bunks are pretty narrow for something humy sized. I'd been taking Gamora's hammock, or whoever's bunk was empty if someone else piloted through the night. I wasn't tired enough yet, grabbing a piece of dried fruit from the kitchen and a vitamin tablet. Still not tired, I thought that we might actually be close enough to Earth to pick up some of their broadcasts, if I was lucky. I turned on the panel and tried to see what I could find.

Something animated, with giant mechs fighting each other, some overly sappy dramatical thing (with terrible acting), news? I noticed that each of the things I found was in another language, because of the slight lag in translation every time I changed between. How many languages were even spoken on Terra?

"Rocket, put on headphones or lower it please," Quill whined from his bunk. I'd never heard him sound so agitated.

I switched it off, lumbering to his bunk. "Problem?"

He pushed the curtain from his bunk open a little, the blue glow of the emergency floor lights reflecting off his half-open eyes. It was weird talking to him at eye level without craning my neck or sitting on something. "Nervous. Never thought I'd go home."

"And?" I asked. There was clearly more, as his voice dropped off at the end of his sentence.

"And, I'm probably going to have to do this alone. I don't want to do this alone."

"What, why?"

"Why do I have to or why don't I want to?"

"I don't care about what you want, jerk. Why do you have to do this by yourself? Not letting that much money out of my sight." We both knew the answer to the latter question, and I have a reputation to uphold.

"Earth's off the map, remember? Drax, Gamora, and Groot would attract way too much attention."

"You didn't say anything about me."

"You would be fine, walking around on your own… if you didn't wear clothes and kept your mouth shut… no offense. I know you're you, Bud, but there are animals on my planet that look exactly like you do. Not that that's really going to help me, other than moral support." Quill laughed quietly. "But I'm not going to ask you to strip and stalk me. I got this."

"With THAT much money on the line? Flarg no. Consider it done. And if it is a trap, I'll claw out some throats. You're way too squishy to protect yourself, and I sure as hell ain't letting you run off with that much cash on your own."

"Thanks, Rocket."

"Get some sleep, asshole."


	2. On Proper Communication

I woke up the next morning, ready to scratch at a horrible itch behind my ear, to the feeling of drool pooling up and hard plastic. Flarg. I'd forgotten that Terra was 'closed', as in not advanced enough to allow outside contact, although after the Chitauri attack last year, Nova'd been considering first contact.

Either way, they had zero exposure to non-Terran diseases, and we'd been traipsing halfway 'round the universe practically full of a hundred ways to kill a non-inoculated Terran. We were all safe, but our first contact was a good way to cause mass extinction. I breathed into the mask, smelling lightly of sap (Groot must've done it) and cursed the fact that I could neither get to the itch at the back of my head nor clear the drool that had pooled underneath my chin inside the plastic until I'd been deemed disinfected. Yetch. They'd made me able to talk but they couldn't make it so I wouldn't continuously drool when my mouth was open.

Probably not deemed essential to intelligence, but sure as hell deemed important to hygiene. Of everyone on the ship, save maybe Gamora, I prided myself on keeping clean and not wearing the same ratty-ass shit every day (looking at you, Quill). I cleaned my clothes. Sure, it was hard enough finding things in my size, especially a good G suit, so when I did, I got enough duplicates. Not that it would really matter the next few days.

Hopefully we hadn't landed yet, I actually enjoyed watching entry, but… oh. They couldn't have put the decontamination mask on me without removing my jumpsuit. That would explain why I wasn't awake. Or probably had been but couldn't remember. Without the G suit on, I usually passed out in reentry.

Damn the small body.

Realizing that I was actually strapped down on a bunk as my vision and thoughts slowly came into focus (Quills? I'd put up a poster of the Andromeda galaxy over mine and this was blank), I'd started to remember stripping down to shorts and hooking myself up to the system. Groot probably strapped me into a bed when I passed out from the rush of blood to my head. Strapping me down to anything was not a good idea, and I started to feel very, very claustrophobic. Sitting upright with a seat harness was one thing, this, however, hit a bit too close to home.

Worse, with the curtains drawn and my arms strapped down, I couldn't really check how much longer I had to wear the stupid head-slash-chestpiece. It usually took Groot an hour before the all-clear, me two or three, and the other three about four apiece. Pretty likely Groot was done and could at least unstrap me so I didn't start feeling like I had to claw at something. I could already feel my heart beating out of my chest.

"Hey? Groot? A hand please?" Oh, wait, probably too muffled through the mask and curtain. My upper torso and thighs were strapped to the bed, but my tail was free underneath. I used it to rustle the curtain as best I could. I couldn't really speak Groot's language, but I actually learned enough of it (the translation implants that exist don't handle nonverbal sound-based communication, since so few species use it) that I could make a facsimile with rustled fabric or paper if I needed to tell him something simple and discreet. I apparently speak both Xandarian or Kree, switching between based on my mood, but as I'd had the implant before I could even talk or think in sentences, I didn't even know when I was speaking what. It was just thought and concept. From what I'd heard, people didn't usually get one implanted until after they were in primary school; it screwed with language centers in the brain otherwise. Because of course it did, and I wouldn't be surprised if those people there did this to me on purpose.

I just let things run through my head to try and keep the fact that I was strapped down (either Groot or I probably did it to myself for reentry, but still) out of my mind.

Languages…

Quill spoke, what did he say, English?

I'd turned my implant off once when I wanted to think and not pay attention to anyone else, and was surprised to discover that not only did Gamora speak in one of the two languages I understood unassisted (well, that wasn't really a surprise, since she probably spoke Kree), Drax did as well. Good to know if our implants went bad, I'd be able to talk to everyone but Quill without problems, but bad in that I wouldn't be able to tune them out even if I wanted to. Quill… spoke in some strange creole that definitely had one of the two languages I spoke in it. Less throaty than Drax and Gamora, so I'm guessing some Xandarian, probably his Ravager language. But when Quill put on his music, or sang in general… that must be what English sounded-

Bah. Right in the eyes with a shot of very bright sunlight. Absolutely Quill's bunk, I noted, as Groot pulled the curtain all the way around. Only Quill had a porthole that lined up with where his bunk was located, when the curtain on the backside was open. I blinked a few times as Groot undid the restraints. His mask was off, so it had been at least an hour since landing. I couldn't sit up with the apparatus, but at least I didn't have to take my mind far, far away from Halfworld with internal ramblings about foreign languages.

Groot held out a tendril, "I am Groot. /Sorry. Either that or you would have been thrown halfway across the cabin./"

I grasped it with my now-freed hand, motioning with the other to pull the curtain back around enough to 'talk' back. I thumped out an attempt of "No worries," with my foot rustling the curtain, but it could have easily been mistaken for "hot fruit". The next question I knew I could ask properly, giving the curtain a vigorous shake. "Others?"

"I am Groot. /Passed out, same as you. Drax in bed, Gamora and Peter in their seats. Not the best landing. Nobody hurt, though, and the ship's fine./"

"Time?"

"I am Groot. /Local time is just past noon. We landed two and a half hours ago./"

Armed with the knowledge I'd be stuck in the stupid breathing apparatus as it eradicated most of my viruses and bacteria for at most another half hour (note to self: no alcohol or food with cultures for at least 24 hours, damn), I thought about closing my eyes again. Until I looked to the side out of the porthole.

We'd landed on some kind of low ridge, and Quill or Groot (probably Groot, if nobody else stayed awake from the G shock) landed us facing outwards towards the valley. There was some kind of small wooden house next to the ship, hopefully vacant. The ship, I could see (or due to the fact I couldn't see, in this case) was cloaked, as one of the fins that should be near where Quill's bunk was on the outside was not visible from the window, but that didn't mean someone couldn't feel it, walk into it, or, if they were really (un)lucky, stumble their way inside if left unlocked.

The lower valley was dotted with small, short buildings and a forest. I'm sure once the entire ship was off of lockdown Groot would want to go to the roof and sun himself, so long as he didn't stretch himself too high out of the cloaking field. It was a pleasant view, and not in the symmetrically manufactured way Xandar was. This town had streets, but not the sort of planned order I saw on most other planets. It was… Quaint?

"I am Groot. /To think that these people destroyed an entire Chituri army./"

I swatted the curtain, "Impressed."

"I am Groot. /Castration?/"

I glared at him through the plastic, and he shrugged wryly, poking at the foot I'd been using to 'talk', "I am Groot. /I can guess what you said. Still need to work on your enunciation,/" before walking off.

I heard a creak above and at an angle. Drax must have been beginning to rouse, and Groot make quick work of releasing his restraints when I heard the telltale chimes of a completed decontamination. The helmet clicked, then hissed, and I slowly undid the locks in case any of my fur got trapped within. I slid down the bunk and out of the awful gear, making sure to leave the large ball of saliva inside the apparatus. I locked it shut and pressed the release button and listened to it hiss, then clank down on the floor as the hydraulics reeled it in. It would clean itself and I wouldn't need to put new… oh. Quill's bed was full of my shed fur and dried skin from the areas around my back implants. I clawed the sheet off as I sat up uneasily, pitching it and everyone else's strewn clothing into the laundry chute. As the automated machine at the bottom of the chute hummed to life, I wiped the last of the drool off my lower jaw and ran down to the shower before I lost the free hot water.

* * *

I put on my Ravager jumpsuit (incidentally, not a G suit, but much more comfortable, so thanks for that, Yondu), brushing the last of the disinfectant out of my tail. I smelled like hospital, but the whole ship smelled like a lack of things. Too sterile. I could feel my stomach churning. I wanted to eat, but opening the refrigerator or even a food pod would ruin the antimicrobial process, so I sat at the cockpit next to a now unrestrained, but half naked and annoyed Peter. He gave me one of his patented shit-eating grins and raised a hand, revealing only his middle finger, something I discovered to be a grave Terran insult. His mask, clipped down from the crown of his head to half his torso, same as mine, looked to be just a tad too small for him. Gamora, looking serenely out the window and also mostly disrobed, was wearing one a bit too big. Must have put on the wrong ones, and I almost felt sorry for Quill's discomfort. Almost.

Drax was already out of his and stretching off the bedsores, taking in the sights out of the cockpit window.

"Quiet." He mused. "Terra is nice. Food would be preferred, however."

I could tell and mostly hear that Quill was trying to say something back inside the mask, but it was too muffled for the implant to pick up properly. Even if Drax spoke whatever Quill did, he certainly wouldn't have heard anything at all with his ears.

I got him a tablet, and he drew out the loopy Xandarian script, "Some food left for us in that cabin. Paper said so at least, and I'm inclined to believe it's safe- or I can get us stuff from a store in town if we decide otherwise. And don't make me remind you to keep the refrigerator in here closed. I don't want to breathe through this any longer than I need to, and I really don't want to disinfect the ship twice.'

Drax looked over his shoulder, pressed a few buttons, and the script reformed as Kree, while Gamora's pod chimed, and she released herself, stretching, before heading to the lower deck (shower or fresh clothing, likely).

Peter crossed his arms over the plastic, then snatched out the tablet from Drax's nearby grasp.

'Fuck you all.'


	3. On Proper Appearances

Groot had already gone above deck to sun himself, the sweet scent of flowers blooming and leaves growing permeating the air. 'At least someone gets to eat,' I grumbled internally. But the rays streaking from Terra's yellow star, floating to the surface through an (albeit patchy) ozone layer was probably good for him. I could actually hear him creaking… something that happened the last time we took him outside. He'd grown a good head taller at our last daytime stop.

Being stuck on Terra to trade for supplies might actually be the final push he needed to regrown to full size. Note to self- see if we could invest in a good sun lamp for him. It's not like he ate anything anyway.

I sat on a tree stump next to the parked Milano. I hated to admit it, but Groot was a pretty decent driver in a pinch. I could still smell scorched pine from above us on the ridge. If I walked even a half pace away, the Milano was out of my sight, projecting an image of the area behind us on a field extending in a bubble around the vehicle. I could still smell the engine, but I wasn't sure if the humys could smell as well as myself or Groot. Drax couldn't smell for shit unless it was strong enough to knock over an adult Skrull, but Gamora and Peter seemed to have some sense of things that he couldn't.

Hopefully I just could smell too well. The engine exhaust was burning my nostrils.

I'd say that Quill was taking his sweet time in the shower, like usual, but I could actually understand and appreciate him taking as long as he was. One, nerves, but two, I don't think he wanted to accidentally wipe out half his own planet from some stupid Centurian flu.

Gamora opened the hatch after the all-clear and had already gone off exploring on the mountain. She knew how not to be seen. Drax, I could hear him up on the deck with Groot, scraping away at something. I could feel my tail swishing of its own accord, anxious and hungry. Finally, the hatch hissed, and Peter jumped out, in a stripped down version of what he normally wore. Same pants and shirt, but gone were his usual coat and vest, as well as his leather shin guards. He looked, younger? No. Plain.

He shivered, and I could see his breath a little.

"Ugh, that's way colder than I expected," he groaned. "I'll need to get myself a coat that won't make me look I just came off of filming an Indiana Jones flick."

"Yo! Drax! Groot!" he then yelled upward, at the top of the ship. "C'mon, I'm not starting this stupid charade Yondu's dragging me on until I've had some food." Drax slides down the side of the ship, bounces off a fin, and lands next to Quill. Groot leaned over the top to wave hello (was his hand green? That's a good sign), and then scooted back up to the top of the deck. He was getting his own fill.

Peter unfurled a piece of paper from his pants pocket, and fished out a small black panel from the other. He flipped his head back towards the ship, and with a "Milano, biometric lockdown, one through five, thanks," started towards the ramshackle cabin. The ship closed up behind him. I would have to breathe into a small pipe at the bottom if I wanted to get back in.

Speaking of breathing, the fur on the scruff of my neck stood on end. Someone was definitely behind me. I whipped around, ready to bite, to see Gamora. Yes, she was an awesome fighter who did way less in collateral damage and way more in stealth than I was willing to admit, but, d'ast did she know how to make an entrance. With two quick jumps she was at Quill's side as he used the small black device to unlock the cabin. Drax, Gamora, and Quill carefully went inside.

If Quill was going native, so was I. Once they shut the door, I did something I only reserved for emergencies, getting down on all fours. Despite what some of the Nova doctors thought after they patched us all up from the Infinity Stone debacle, the hip and shoulder replacements I bore didn't force me into an unnatural bipedal position, the just made it easier to stand upright for longer periods of time. And it was one of the things I'd demanded of the scientists operating on me, not the other way around.

I didn't have many luxuries back in that place, but after I started talking, I'd convinced them it'd be easier for them to secure funding if they could show they'd really made a proper intelligent person from, well, from what I'd been Before. Apparently, and from what little I could remember, my species could stand for short periods on their own without help.

In reality, I was short enough as it was, and being able to stand up to talk smack at them was pretty much my only sanity.

I still run on all fours, and have no shame in it. It's faster. Walking, though, that's something I hadn't done this way in a very long while. My hands, especially, protested. They weren't used to this much weight pressed downwards on them. So I switched up my tactic, by running first, something much more familiar, and then slowing down my pace until I was trotting. Better.

"Friend Rocket? Friend tree?" I heard from inside. "You did not follow us indoors. You must see this!"

Before I could get back upright, he swung the door open, wearing an eyepiece that looked like the top half of Quill's respirator. He lifted it up, not quite sure what he was seeing. Quill and Groot have seen me flee before, but I don't think he ever has. Rather than try to explain myself, I broke into a full run and skidded between his legs before he could react. "Thought you had good reflexes, Drax!" I yelled, moments before skidding into the far wall of the wooden structure.

"That is now two highly unbelievable things I have seen today. I did not know you were so fleet footed, small friend. It seems like a skill you are not able to practice on the ship."

"Ow," I whined, rubbing my temple, as I tried to stop the room from spinning, "It's reserved for emergencies, Drax. And, yes, I was practicing. We don't have a treadmill or an inexplicably large cargo hold where I can run." I omitted the part about practicing to be a wild animal to shadow Quill later, but, I wasn't lying either. I steadied myself with my tail and pushed myself upright, Groot now hobbling over to give me something to lean on, while I rubbed the stars out of my eyes.

Speaking of inexplicably large cargo holds, the space inside was large, empty, cooler than out, with no sign of Quill or Gamora. Where the flarg were they?

Drax was certainly oblivious to wordplay and sarcasm, but very, very good at reading faces. "Here," Drax said, as he handed me and Groot adjustable headpieces similar to what he was wearing. "Also," he said, as he put his own back on, "you both will want to move back to the door before wearing them. You're currently standing halfway inside of a chair leg."

Ack! The room was molecularly displaced. When I skidded inside, it was pretty likely that I had gone straight through a whole number of things I couldn't perceive. And Quill was probably busting a lung laughing, especially if one of the things I'd run through had been him. I really needed to give the Terrans some credit. The only Terran technology were the little bits and pieces I'd seen at junk sellers or on Quill's ship, none of it anywhere close to modern. I walked back towards the door and fitted the receptor around my head and nose, then fumbled for the switch to turn it on.

Immediately, the empty room melted away into what was really there- a bunker of sorts, red detailing everywhere with that familiar flame symb-oh. Ravager. This wasn't Terran at all, it was Ravager. Why the flarg would they make something so expensive out on Terra? They couldn't legally trade with-oh, again. Poaching or black market stuff most likely.

It looked pretty new and well maintained for being so empty, there were a few bunks in excellent condition, a small kitchen, a table inlaid with a holographic projector, but then I noticed how much older the rest of the room was. The sleeping quarters and kitchen I couldn't place, and the table was pretty new, it had a spiral vibranium crystal prominently displayed on its side. Five years old, at the worst?

But the rest of the equipment collected on the far wall was definitely much older and not in use. At least twenty years old- Dandari Electronics' familiar crescent logo was prominently displayed at one of the terminals, and they went out of business right after I'd gotten my first comms system from them. Getting a refund required twisting a few arms.

Exactly as Drax would have been imagining that scenario.

Quill was, of course, grinning like an idiot. "Check it out!" We've got our own secret base!" He held up one of the slips of paper we'd teased out of the Terran currency stacks. This must have been the first stop.

"How do you know it's ours?"

"Well it WILL be," he responded. "Here."

He put his hand on a bio-sensor, and it acknowledged him as a Ravager. Immediately, the door slammed shut behind Groot and a klaxon started sounding. I jumped a little.

"Yup, same as last time. Don't worry, scared the shit outta me too," Quill said reassuringly.

"It seems to be prerecorded," Gamora added, unfazed. "You did not hear this from outside?"

"No," I replied, as the lights cut out and the hologram turned on. "Molecular displacement- we're technically not even 'here'. Doesn't work outside of its designated space though. We wear these goggles outside and we'll just look like morons."

An image of an utterly infuriated Yondu sputtered to life, floating over the table. "BOY!" It roared. "Look at ME, boy!" to whit Quill gave the image a middle finger.

"I really thought he was talking to me last time. I actually responded. But this is exactly-"

"The SAME, BOY?! Hell, no it ain't."

Quill may have peed himself.

"I told you the last time, what, do your ears need a box'n? I didn't send you here on no pleasure cruise. You're a Terran, so you can just walk in and out as you please, Mr. Fancyass. You're gonna do some work for me to make up for the fact that y'all swindled me out of my rightful stone, you little whelp. Clean that junk outta here, it's as old and grey as that little rodent y'all got clinging to ya. Don't leave it so no Terran can find it. And no, I don't want any of that twenty-five year-old shit back. I'd have to pay someone to take it off my hands. Dump it or keep it, I don't care. Maybe y'all can use it as ballast."

"GET MOVIN'!"

The screen flicked off and the lights came back on. "Fffff…" Quill groaned. "I thought it was just to get a rise out of me. But that's not even close to what he said the last time, other than the opening."

"What did he say?" I inquired.

"He… well in his own way, he thanked us for stopping Ronan. And then he asked me for the rest of the team so we could all hear him."

"I am Groot." I heard from behind me, as Groot tugged on the inside door handle.

Shit.

If I didn't have fur, my face would have probably gone pale.

"What. Did. Groot. Say." Peter was Not Happy.

"Door's sealed shut. And there's no way he could break it down."


	4. On Proper Notations of the Life Cycle

So… what now? Yondu had lured us to Terra with a massive sum of Terran money- which now seems very likely to be fake- like ninety percent likely fake- to clean up his abandoned poaching operation? But then he locks us inside? How were we supposed to remove the stuff if he locked us in?

This made absolutely no sense. I remember one of Quill's books he had translated from English to Xandarian for me, something about "when you remove the impossible, what remains, no mater how improbable must be fact," or something. Yondu wouldn't have gone through the trouble of adding watermarks to fake currency, especially if Quill hadn't seen Terran money in decades. No, the probability the money was real was now hovering at around fifty percent. Quill hasn't been home in what, twenty five, twenty six years?

Wait, when did his mother pass away?

"All right, Quill. It's time to fess up." I barked.

"Fess up? About…what?" I could smell Quill sweating like a Chitauri in sunlight, and hear his pulse quicken considerably. He wasn't in on us being locked in this stupid outpost, but he was definitely hiding something from all of us.

I pumped one of the six swivel seats around the table up to its maximum height, and then, using one of the others, jumped up, onto the table, and then sat on the raised seat so I could be at their eye level. Drax, Gamora, and Peter all sat down around; Groot looked forlornly at the door.

"All right, Quill. I know you're not in on getting us locked in here. Your fear is stinking up the room."

"I do not smell anything unusual, friend Rocket. Is this some sort of metaphor?" Drax said, derailing the conversation slightly.

"No, I can actually smell his fear. Terrans and some other species let off sweat and pheromones- you and Gamora don't, not really, but Xandarians and Skrull I can practically smell halfway across a city when they're getting mugged. Hell, I can tell what Groot is thinking just by how much pollen is shooting up my nose.'

'Also, I can hear Peter's heart beating a mile a minute," I paused and added, "His heart beating a mile a minute IS a metaphor. That just means it's very fast." I said, preemptively blocking Drax's next likely question.

"But look," I said, giving Quill an annoyed stare- one he probably didn't even see through the visor. "This whole thing makes no sense. We were clearly lured here with cash. Yondu snarls at us to get rid of his stuff for him but then locks us in here. And Quill," I said, pointing a clawed finer at him accusatorily, "despite not having seen the slips of paper hidden inside of what may very well be fake money, knew exactly when to return to Terra. It was written right on them."

"There… was a date on the slips of paper?" Quill's voice trailed off and all eyes were on him. He wasn't faking surprise.

"Yeah," I replied, crossing my arms. "Look, it's on the sheet marked with a straight line down. The first sheet, most like."

Quill pulled out the twelve papers, and plucked the first one from the stack.

"Where?" he asked. I pointed to the bottom.

"There's nothing there," he said.

"Nothing?" I asked incredulously. He passed the paper off to Gamora, who then passed it to Drax.

"That spot is blank." Drax replied matter-of-factly.

"I am Groot. /Let me see/" Groot spoke, as he gingerly snatched the paper from Drax's hands.

Groot furrowed his brow as much as someone made of stiffer stuff could, and fished his tablet from the side of his body by loosening the vines around it. Groot didn't need pockets. He could always make his own.

With a tendril, he made neat strokes on the screen, then flipped it to face us all when done. He'd drawn out a copy of the slip of paper, Kree writing in the corner and all.

"That's what I see." I said, irritated, pointing to the tablet. "Why can't you three? Ink's pretty much the same color and everything."

"I am Groot. /I think the ink is infrared, Rocket. In our range of sight, but not theirs./"

"Oh, Groot says he thinks the ink's infrared."

Quill started to mess with his headpiece. "Our stuff always has an infrared mode for working at night. Even these should have it," he said, fiddling with the side of the goggles. "Ok. There." He motions for Groot to pass him the paper. "Well, waddya know," he laughs, "Clear as day. Nice eyes, man. But," he adds solemnly, "I haven't got a Skrull's ass of an idea of what this says."

"It's two days from now," Gamora said matter-of-factly, after she glanced at the tablet Groot was still holding.

"Gamora, I don't think Quill knows Kree." I interjected.

"No, I don't," he responded, fiddling with the controls again, probably to turn off the infrared mode. "I can only read English- my own language- and Xandarian, and I speak both plus whatever the Ravagers do- nobody ever named it. It translates just fine spoken normally, but is intelligible with a few clicking and popping noises mixed in when we want to talk among ourselves without being understood. Translators can't pick that up but we all know it, and it screws with translation implants, too." He huffs, indignantly, and cradles his head in his hand, elbow to the table. "So, why would there be a date written in a language I can't read, in ink I physically can't see?"

"Because it wasn't meant for you." I replied, starting to put some pieces together. If I was right, the probability that the money Yondu had given to us being fake just dropped right back down to 0. This stuff was a gift, but disguised in case any of his crewmates overheard him talking from his command center on his own ship or saw him planning it out. Because, damn was this elaborate.

"First off," I said, "you said there is food in here, yeah? Let's eat, and go over what we know. I think I'm starting to understand what that blasted Centurian was actually doing."

"How do we know it has not been tampered with?" piped Drax.

"Because Quill's initial reaction was right. This is supposed to be our base. Or a base. Just, let me eat, okay? Can't think on an empty stomach."

* * *

We raided the kitchen. In the storage cabinet were about twenty meal containers with the familiar "irradiated and safe to eat on class 5 planets" symbol, so we could open these without unleashing a viral holocaust upon the local populace.

Irradiated food was hardly better than raw tubers in the taste department, so I also opened up the refrigerator. There was very little on the bottom portion, except for something that made Quill's eyes sparkle. Metal cans. He swiped two of them out of the bottom shelf gingerly, surveyed the rest of the refrigerator, and then kicked to door shut. I couldn't reach the top handle, and assumed it to be just as empty as the bottom, but Quill looked inside anyway.

"Niiiiiiiiiiice!" he almost shrieked. "Actual food. Well, more 'food' than the stuff-they-pass-as-food in the cupboard."

He pulled out some bags and a box from the top cabinet and I felt a rush of cold air fly by. Much colder than it should be. "Hey, guys, if you wait thirty minutes I can make something half-edible instead of marginally edible. Don't know if you'll like Earth food, and trust me, I won't be offended, but at least it won't taste like sawdust."

Groot grunted, in mock offense.

"That is way too cold to be a refrigerator," Gamora remarked, opening the top of the machine. "Is this how Terrans preserve food? Cryogenically? Seems like a waste of energy for foodstuffs. I've never seen it used outside of surgery or for stasis."

"We have canned, freeze-dried and dehydrated stuff too," he replied, fishing for something in the lower cabinets. "But most people here have a freezer- that- and the food doesn't taste as bad as canned. Plus," he said, pointing to something I could not see in the top compartment, "some of our food is actually meant to be eaten frozen. That'll be our dessert. I can promise even if this tastes terrible, that will be good." He pulled out a flat metal tray, and opened up a large black box. He flipped over one of the packages in his hand, and fiddled with one of the knobs on the box with the other while he read the back of the red bag. A controlled fire started in the box and I realized it was a cooking unit. He slammed the door on it shut with his hip while he fished for more things out of cabinets.

For once, the rest of the team was utterly out of his element. Quill was an odd one, with his music and charms, but he knew the galaxy AND he knew this strange planet.

Quill wasn't a bad cook, (that title was a nice tie between Groot- whose taste buds were wired differently from everyone else's - and Gamora- who never learned) but the best was Drax by far. Gamora, realizing that she couldn't really assist, slinked back to a seat.

"Hey," Quill called behind him as he threw a bag to Drax. "Open this, and treat it like fresh red seagrass. Salt is in this," he said, motioning to a canister with a humy girl holding an umbrella.

Salt! That was something we could store and trade. Quill must have been thinking the same thing as he passed the canister. "Huh. This whole thing was only two dollars?" he asked to himself, as he passed the container over and continued to open frozen food.

"And how much did we have again?" Gamora asked.

"Thirty three… thousand…" Quill responded. "Holy shit, guys, we are going to be rich," he added nonchalantly as he continued to cook.

Rich was nothing. Salt was cheaper than dirt on this planet- maybe even literally, I don't know peat prices on Terra. Fifteen thousand canisters of salt that size? People would honestly think it was fake, or that we'd robbed somebody with how much salt we'd have in one place for trading; we'd probably have to sell in small amounts or risk crashing the market.

Salt has always been something everyone needs when traveling for a long time. Not to preserve food anymore, but to at least save it from being horrible. Spices in general are a great trade commodity (why didn't I think of spices?), but salt could be irradiated without loss of taste, so buying it from Terra would not be contraband or diseased. Probably. I can't believe I thought this, but running it by Nova first might actually prevent scuffles or issues if we took that much salt with us.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, as promised, Drax was handing plates and tableware to Gamora and Groot. The utensils looked clumsy, pronged spears, small elongated knives, and spoons. At least something was universal. Cups, filled with ice to chill drinks (that was extravagant), and bottles of what was likely water and more of the metal cans were placed on the table, along with two funny shaped red and yellow bottles with what looked to be their caps on the bottom.

Trays of salty smelling food and very, very green vegetables were placed in the center.

"Before we discuss what the flarg is going on here, explanation," Quill said, grinning. "I don't expect you to like anything, so grab one of those irradiated TV dinners if you don't like this. This isn't high class Earth food, and I haven't made anything like it on my own. I was abducted as a kid, remember? Only cooked with…" he paused and cleared his throat.

"Well anyway, I did read the instructions. This stuff is fast food- in a restaurant they'd usually have it to you in five minutes, and like I said, not fine dining. These are chicken nuggets," he said, pointing to the delicious smelling but relatively unappetizing looking brown shapes, "they're, hm, they're pieces of poultry that's been breaded and then baked." He then pointed to other things in turn. "Egg rolls, vegetables in a fried dough shell. Mozzarella sticks, cheese that's been breaded, and it should be okay, it's not cultured, but I wouldn't eat too many to be on the safe side. French fries, cut and salted tubers. Guacamole, a topping for things made of mashed vegetables, you can dip the other things in it, but usually people dip raw vegetables or tortilla chips- that's pieces of thin bread," he said, dropping a stack of thin, circular bread on a plate on the table, "which we don't have, but these are tortillas, which are close enough. The red bottle is ketchup, the yellow is mustard. Don't drink them, you put a little on the chicken or fries. The cans are carbonated sugar water, and the clear bottles are water. Oh, and some broccoli," he said, pointing to the vividly green vegetation, "because the rest of this stuff isn't exactly the best for you, and I don't need a crew tired from binging on junk food. And save some room for desert, there is ice cream in the freezer."

"So Quill, how do we eat this?" Gamora asked quizzically, holding the tiny spear gingerly in two fingers.

Peter picked up one of the thin bread pieces with his fingers and ripped it into small pieces. He then took the tiny spear and slid some of the breaded food onto his plate, then speared several of the green vegetables. They looked like tiny little trees. I swallowed. I did not want to eat an analog of my best friend, even if Groot himself ate vegetation from time to time. He gingerly picked up one of the "egg rolls", which he made no mention of containing eggs (probably an English-to-Kree translation problem), then squirted the red sauce onto his plate. "I don't like mustard," he said, pointing to the yellow bottle, "but you put it on your food in the same way." Lazily, he dipped a piece of poultry into the small pile of red on his plate and bit, then took one of the ripped pieces of flatbread and dipped it in the bowl of green mush. "Like that."

"What is the purpose of the small knife?" Drax inquired. Quill picked the spear in one hand, and the knife in the other, and deftly cut the tree on his plate into bite sized pieces. Groot was nonplussed but it still made me a little uncomfortable.

"Spoon?" I asked.

"For desert. Well, dig in!" That was a metaphor Drax had already gotten used to, and his silence on the matter was a sign that he was learning. I saw from the corner of my eye a small grin on his face as he remembered that it was not a call to actually burrow through the food.

Gingerly, I began picking through the spread, afraid that it would be worse than the interstellar MREs. Not that I doubted Quill's or Drax's ability to cook, but I noticed how much Quill talked down the food. There are very few things worse than having to resort to that packaged crap for sustenance. I should know. I spent most of my time… there…. on them. They provide proper nutrition, calories, and essential vitamins, sure, but they weren't a table full of people you could now call friend dipping into weird green communal vegetable sauces. Groot twisted open a water bottle for himself, and I grabbed one of the sweetwaters in the cans. Might as well go proper native. If I didn't like it, Yondu can bite my ass. He stocked this hut.

Quill wasn't kidding. It was cloying, almost, in how sweet it was. I wrinkled my nose and passed it off to Groot. Sugar water was good for plants, I'd heard. It wasn't throw-up-on-the-leather-interior-of-the-Milano bad, but if we were having a sweet after dinner I didn't want a sweet drink, too. And my stomach was still in knots from the decontamination. I snatched up two of the cheese sticks, which looked a bit too much like small wooden logs, and the chicken. I grabbed a piece of flatbread, too, and copied Quill in shredding it. Quill was right in how lowbrow this stuff was, and it reminded me of bar food I'd had before. Greasy, salty, fried. Some things never do change in the universe- except for the green dip. That was something else. Even Groot, who rarely ate, at least tasted everything and I was pretty sure he would have snacked on the entire pile of small tree vegetables if we let him, given his reaction. Begrudgingly, I added a few to my own plate as well, as we started to piece together the story.

"So," Drax inquired, as he practiced trying to cut food with the unusual Terran tableware. "You think you understand what Yondu really wants." Statement, not a question. Drax and the rest of our team started taking my tactical knowledge as fact, with no condescendence. It was nice to be recognized as an equal among them.

"Well, for one," I responded, in between bites (whatever vegetables were in that green dip, I wanted ten bags of each, and Quill to show me how to make it), "we aren't locked in here at all. We can walk out and leave whenever we want. Yondu did that for show. Someone on his ship probably walked in while he was starting to talk. I think the initial noise and light show was to get a rise out of Quill as a joke, and only that. I don't think anything he said to you three was fake, and what he said to all of us was some very veiled hints."

"Hold on, Rocket. What do you mean, we can just leave?" Gamora asked.

"Quantum, remember?" I replied, tapping the headpiece. "And the wooden door of the room we share didn't have a lock on it. We take the headpiece off and can just walk right out. No weird deadlocked Ravager outpost with the goggles off."

"Hah. Smart," Quill snipped. "He almost made me… ugh, nevermind. So, hints?"

"Well, first I want to know why you waited so long to tell us, and that you knew the right time to come."

Quill was silent and not eating for a good three minutes, before uttering, "Yondu, when he paid out my bounty, told me he left me a gift in my bag. From my mom. He said I might want to pop by and say hi to her a day or two before the anniversary. I thought he'd given me back my Care Bear he'd swiped from my bag when I was first abducted, since it was almost bursting at the seams. I didn't expect him to have filled my bag with cash, and I just sat there, staring at it in my quarter every morning after I'd changed. I didn't look closer at the money, really. Just quickly counted one of the stacks and added up how many there were. I must have grabbed one of the ones without a note inside."

"But I knew as the day got closer, I either had to go back, or just burn it all and move on. In Centurian customs, a kid is supposed to revisit their parent's grave if they can on the 26th anniversary of their death. Celebrating their ascension into the Centurian version of heaven, or something. Yondu certainly didn't know my mom, but he found out the reason why I was such a wreck on his ship the first few weeks. You're also supposed to camp at your parent's burial mound if you can, right after they're… right after they're gone, and he told me once when I was older that he regretted not letting me have that chance."

"Not to be an I-told-you-so sort of dick, but I figured it had something to do with your mom. Centurians take death rituals crazy seriously, especially now that so few still exist. I figure, he's giving you- or rather your mother, through you- a proper memorial. I didn't know you didn't get to have a proper mourning, man, but I'd bet my tail on a spike that even if you were okay with her passing at the time, Yondu would be shooting himself in the foot with that crazy arrow of his if he didn't let you have a proper funeral," I replied. The pieces were definitely clicking into place.

"But that's only half of what Yondu is doing. I think he's trying to settle two of his problems at once," I added, taking a swig from one of the bottles of water. My stomach was already starting to settle, and I reached for another piece of cheese. I'll deal with the horrific repercussions later.

"What would the second issue be?" Drax asked.

"Oh, that one's a little bit more complicated. But, I'm pretty sure it has to do with me."


	5. On Proper Abduction

"You?" Gamora asked.

"Everything here is kinda pointing to that, yeah." I said flatly, a ball forming in my throat. "I think Yondu is trying to apologize."

"Dude, the hell he do to you?" Peter asked, taking a large sip from his can.

"I think... I think he- or his men more like- kidnapped me from Terra too."

Silence. Four sets of eyes were on me.

"I did a little research while we were all stuck in the Nova hospital a few months ago. You're right, Quill. The resemblance between me and Terran raccoons is way too high. I remembered what some of the other subjects looked like, too. When I looked them up they were all other animals from here. Otter, rabbits, squirrels, and opossums. If it were just me, I'd have kept searching other planets, but that's too many from the same place."

"Anyway… it didn't matter none because nobody else survived the labs. Trust me, when I blew the place up I wanted to take everyone else with me. They'd moved me to another wing a year before I'd, erm, 'left' and I thought I'd be able to bust out everyone. But nope, just me. Most of 'em were opossums," I added, snatching Groot's tablet as I'd left mine on the ship, logging into my own research files and facing the screen forward so everyone else could see the images, "Two other raccoons only, and those guys I knew'd been dead long before. Still…"

"Anyway, the Ravagers didn't seem the type to be… eh, coordinated's not the right word, they're plenty coordinated… smart's not quite right… let's go with 'scientifically curious', they don't seem the type to be preforming experiments. But it looks to me they were supplying Halfworld with the needed… raw material… to do so. I knew from the minute I walked in here this was a poaching or smuggling outfit. I just couldn't put a finger on 'what for'."

I took a sip of water and snorted. There was something in my eyes, darn it. I wasn't crying. Didn't change the fact that Groot leaned over and gently placed his hand on the top of my head, and I didn't twitch.

* * *

 

I wasn't adverse to contact, I mean, I hopped up on Groot's shoulder plenty of times (or, when nobody was watching, used his bark as a backscratcher), or passed objects to people, but I wasn't really used to people- even Groot- touching ME, especially when my earliest memories after the fog of semiconciousness was lifted was being touched, picked up, or groomed before or after surgery. It took me months (and a pretty bad cut on my shoulder blade that had gotten infected) to get me to start even brushing my own fur out. Groot helped in the early days, mostly because if I scratched or bit him he didn't even know I'd done something half the time, but even in the last year I still spasammed when he lifted me up, helped maintain my implants, or picked out the occasional stray parasite. Drax was the first person who'd touched me since (that wasn't a giant tree) that I didn't bite in retribution, but I still remember shaking horribly, although how much could be attributed to him and how much to grieving I didn't know.

Afterwards, when we all started traveling and Groot was still too small, I needed someone to help me clean and maintain my back implants (again, infection-prone, and had to learn the hard way). I had to open myself up figuratively or risk opening myself up literally on another hospital bed (I compromised after the attack on Xandar by wearing rubber caps on my nails and being muzzled in the Nova hospital- and a LOT, like enough to put down Drax 'a lot', of anesthetics- in exchange for not being fully restrained and having my nails trimmed while they healed all of us up, but still).

So, unrolling my jumpsuit to my waist a few times a week, Gamora had been the next to invade my personal space, and I maintained hers in perfect working order in exchange. For the first time, I didn't feel so helpless, lying flat on my stomach while she carefully ran her hands over my back, checking for leakage, repairing some frayed wire, tightening the caps, and disinfecting around where the metal alloy met fur and skin, because when she was done making sure the robotic parts of me weren't slowing down the organic, I was the mechanic on duty that made sure hers worked too.

I trusted Groot with my life to follow procedure, but this was different. I never really held Groot's life in my hands, if anything, it had always been the other way around. But Gamora needed me as much as I needed someone else. Sure, she could have taught Drax or Quill what to do (and I'm sure Quill would have appreciated seeing her partially disrobed, given his occasional side-eye glances at her in the cockpit); the really difficult maintenance like a blown fuse would prompt me or her to see a proper repair shop, anyway, but it was good to have someone else who knew. We were completely different species, completely different people, and yet, a lot of our parts were nearly or exactly the same. And we could fix each other.

The first few times, I'd capped my claws with the rubber tips from the hospital and belted my mouth shut so I wouldn't bite her. "You really worry you will hurt me?" she would ask. When I told her that I still bit and scratched Groot, she laughed. "That's because you can. It's easy. He does not feel pain. However, Rocket, I bleed. Remove those crutches and remember if you claw at me I will not be able to help you with a torn-up hand."

The first time after was rough. Everything in my body told me to lash out, but I reminded myself that if I injured her, she wouldn't be able to finish. By the fifth cleaning, I was able to lie still (mostly, my tail was still a bundle of twitchy nerves), and I actually started to feel okay. Carefully, I rolled my jumpsuit back up and secured it in place, slid off her bunk, rolled up the towel I was laying on and replaced it with a fresh one for her.

"I am guessing that, like myself, you prefer to wear clothing that covers you implants for both hygienic and social reasons," she said, muffled, as she lay on her back with her shirt rolled up to her armpits. "but why a G-suit, all the time? We only have to worry about pulling G's on entry of a large planet. Surely there are more comfortable clothing options. It must be choking you."

"The clothes the Ravagers and Nova gave me aren't G suits," I said, trying to avoid the conversation as I unscrewed the cap on the implant under her third rib. "I have cold water here if you need it. I'm working in your temperature regulator and you're probably going to feel flush."

She turned her head toward me, her cheeks already a brighter shade of green. I passed her a damp towel. "Fine," I added, knowing she was going to wring it out of me anyway. "It's for the collar. I have a scruff- like a big roll of skin- on the back of my neck. Grabbing me by it doesn't hurt, in fact it does the exact opposite. I go numb and all of my muscles relax completely until I'm let go, but I'm still totally awake. I don't need that kind of weakness in a bar fight, so I look for something that prevents people from being able to grab it in the first place. And it's how 'they' used to always pick me up so I couldn't fight back."

"Oh," was all she could mutter under her temporary fever. I worked quickly to clean out the inside of the casing and solder in a fresh connector. I was in no rush to cap it, and I kept a hand on her forehead to make sure her temperature dropped back down. Satisfied, I wiped down the cap with rubbing alcohol and only when her eyes fluttered back open and she threw the sweaty towel in my face did I close it back up. "It's one of the few spots you don't have any scars. I was wondering why that was", she said, still just slightly not all there. She shook her head a few times, her hair flying in all directions before it settled. "Well, at least when you're on the ship, if you want something less restrictive, ask."

"Ask what?" I said, checking her adrenaline injector. The levels looked good, and there was no internal corrosion, so I wiped the cap with alcohol and screwed it back into place.

"Well, I make my own clothes for one. When Thanos wasn't sending me on missions I had few companions, no broadcast reception equipment, or any form of entertainment, really. I started shredding my bedsheets and using the kit left for stitching myself back up after a wound, made simple garments out of pure boredom. Eventually, I started repairing uniforms and making armor. Especially with the latter, Thanos was pleased. He let me have use of a workshop in my free time. It's probably the only reason I did not end up as bitter or pessimistic as my, ow. Watch it." I sheepishly looked down. I needed to be a little more careful with her pain dampener.

She sighed, crossing her arms under her head and looking back towards me. "I thought, maybe, now that we are sort of a team, we should have uniforms. I know that sounds a little… silly. But we are the Guardians of the Galaxy, are we not? Perhaps, when we go to our clients dressed a little more sharply we might be able to wring a slightly larger fee out of them," she said, smiling wryly. "I think Peter is starting to rub off on me."

I shook my head as I started work cleaning her translation implant, situated between her shoulder blades. "You and me both, Gamora." I paused, turning hers off so I could go inside it and check if it needed repairs without getting shocked. I then reached into my right ear and disabled my own so I could actually hear myself speak to make sure it was Kree, because it was one thing to sort of feel the languages' differences in my throat and another to actually hear it out loud. "Just do me a favor and don't make us look like the Nova Corps. I'm not that goody-goody."

* * *

 

I looked from one pair of eyes to another at the table. If there were people in the universe I could trust more than this band of idiot losers, I'd be hard pressed to find them. We weren't, as so many thought, a thief, two thugs, a maniac and an assassin, not anymore. We're a leader, a father, a mechanic, an artist, and a cheerleader. Who is a tree. Okay, we are still a bunch of idiot losers, but this group was my group of idiot losers. I took a deep breath and continued.

"Yeah. This was animal poaching. And probably for exotic meat, not for science- look at some of that equipment. Sterilization, but not radiation equipment, so they're sterilizing something that is alive. Stasis units, probably because the animals I listed don't have a long lifespan. Tracking chips, so they could make sure they can find something that's run off. And the fact that, even though these are adjustable," I remarked, tapping the headpiece, "I didn't see any Ravagers on Yondu's ship that were as small as me. Unless they picked up more kids than you and were doing a child labor outfit, which I wouldn't completely put past them, they probably had made smaller headgear for their cargo. Actually," I trailed off as I realized something.

"Yondu locking us in here may not have been because someone came in his private quarters while he was talking to us. It may have been a hint as to how they could keep track of everything. Say I strapped these on my quarry and left the door locked, right it is right now. Take off my own headpiece, walk out the door and collect more. Snap more headpieces on the captured animals, keep the door locked at all times. They can't get out because they're not smart enough to take the goggles off, but you put your on inside and take it off before leaving, a perfect prison. And then you could tag and sterilize them at your leisure, when you have what you want."

"That's wrong," Quill said, head clutched in his hands. "How can you even say that with a straight face? You would have been on someone's dinner plate!"

"Well, didn't we just eat a bird?" I responded, pointing my miniature spear at the plate in the center. "If you want to whine about treatment of animals for food, become a vegetarian. I wasn't any different than any of the other animals they nabbed back then, and I don't really see claw marks or signs of struggle, even on the old stuff, which is why it took so long for me to figure this out. I doubt they were treated poorly other than being stuck in here until the transport came. It's not like they kidnapped a humy to eat." Quill made a face.

"Oh, come on," I snapped. "I heard that on Yondu's ship. They probably told that to you as a little kid to keep you in line. Even Ravagers have limits."

"You're not mad?" Drax inquired. "I have had raccoon before, it could have been your sibling!"

"Who would have been dead, anyway, at least ten years ago! Raccoons live to be eighteen, max, trust me, I've already done my homework. It's only these," I said, jabbing my thumb backwards, agitated, "that have been keeping me alive long as they have. Nova said I'd actually live to be a hundred or more, most like. So I guess I don't have to worry about kicking the bucket anytime soon after all, long as they work. I'm already twenty-eight or twenty-nine Terran years old, and there might even be records in here of when they caught me proper."

"What does kicking buckets have to do with your age, friend Rocket?" Drax inquired.

It was as if the tension had been swept out of the room, like someone opened the airlock in deep space. I snorted, Groot smiled, Gamora held her hand over her mouth to hide the crack in her own personal armor and Peter spit his beverage all over the table in a spray of brown carbonated liquid.

"Kicking the bucket is a euphemism- a word or phrase used to disguise something unpleasant. Given the context, what do you think it might be trying to hide?' I said, still trying to choke down a laugh.

Drax thought hard for a moment, then shakily asked, "Death?"

"Yup. I am going to outlive all you losers. Except maybe Mister-Oh-I'll-Just-Sacrifice-My-Ass-For-No-Good-Purpose-Because-Reasons."

And with that, the last of whatever had been holding us back was gone. Drax and Gamora had long dealt with their personal demons, and Groot, if he had them, never seemed to care. Only Quill and I had pieces of our hearts missing. And here, we could finally both get them back.

I wasn't 'like' a Terran animal. I had been one. Once. But now? I was me. The only one in the whole damn universe. And yet, I had Quill, another Terran ripped from his home without warning. Drax, too, had his family killed by assailants who never remembered they did it. Groot, another whose resiliency pushed past what anyone could expect, who saw the world literally as I did. And Gamora, whose body was made of the same space rock hammered into thin metallic sheets coating both of our very bones.

And before us, Yondu, who was apologizing in his own lopsided way, was giving us a chance to figure out a puzzle before us.

"He- I mean Yondu- singled out that the equipment was as old as I am in here." I said, determined. "We CAN just walk out of here. But if this is a scavenger hunt, he's left us something here. Before we just move on, I'd like to see what it is, if I'm not overthinking all of this. Let's play his game. We've been compensated ten times over for it anyway."

All of us jumped up immediately. "If there's anything, it's in the equipment. Don't try and break anything, and I'll take the chipping machine. Don't want any of you accidentally giving yourself a tracking device," I said.

Gamora took the sterilizer, carefully opening hatches. Drax and Peter were slowly dismantling the stasis equipment, while Groot rifled through the physical files.

"I got something! But we have to find three more pieces." Peter cheered, holding up a small box with the English number one on the side, plus additional writing. I was glad I'd remembered some of the numbers. I'd need to see the sheets again to memorize two through nine. The base for going up a place was an oval… I think?

The chipping machine didn't seem to have anything in it, aside from dust. But if that was just one part, it was worth it to double check, without getting a needle in my side.

"I am Groot. /All of this text is illegible to me. Maybe Peter can read them?/"

"Hey, Quill, help Groot out with the files. They might be in English," I shot, peeking my head out from under the robotic arm I was carefully dismantling.

I heard rustling, but was too focused on unscrewing the Dandari arm, noticing a switch that shouldn't have been there. Naturally, I flicked it. "Hey, Rocket, your serial was 'eight-nine-pea-one-three', yeah?"

"Say that again and I will claw out your throat," I responded in mock annoyance, rolling out from under the machine. I heard a thud and a box fell out where I had just been.

"Well good, I think we've found the second piece."

"I've got the third," I said, dragging out the box out with me. It was fairly big, but not heavy. "Which means the fourth is probably in the sterilizer."

"It's a chair," Gamora said. "I thought it was part of the machine, but it has writing similar to the notes Yondu left."

She rolled it out from the side. It had a small bag on the back, and a small craft joystick on the front. It didn't look like it could fly.

"A wheelchair? The hell we supposed to use that for?" Peter asked, holding out a tan colored folder. Drax picked up the larger box I'd found and set it on the table alongside the one Peter pulled from the stasis unit, and Gamora parked the chair next to the seat we weren't using.

"Okay, so we have a chair that rolls, a folder, and two boxes. Shall we open them?" Gamora questioned.

"Got nothin' to lose," I replied.


	6. Puzzle 1 A Terran and a coon walk into a bar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first minor pizzle! Access puzzle instructions here:  
> https://sites.google.com/site/oct2814/home  
> Some puzzles may have you going to the site I just posted, but this one can be solved right in the page.
> 
> The only thing you'll need to solve all puzzles is a smartphone (any kind, so long as it has a camera). A printer may help with some puzzles, but is not required.
> 
> Please feel free to comment on the puzzle site or in the reviews section, ask for help or hints, etc. PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT POST THE SOLUTION, HIDDEN WEBSITE PAGES, OR THE FINAL RED ANSWERS TO PUZZLES. Don't be that guy who has to suck the joy out of everything.
> 
> One month after the final chapter of the story I will release all the solutions and the hidden content, for those who can't figure it out, on a separate page so that those reading the story later can still try to solve these without being spoiled.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> PS: You may want to take notes on the story itself. While none of the story text is in the minor puzzles, it may be important for the major meta-puzzle. Just sayin'.

I opened the smaller box, which was surprisingly heavy for its size. Inside was a small flat glass and metal brick, and a long white cord. Some sort of plug. There were also instructions, written in Xandarian, which I read aloud. "Portable modern Terran computer. Built in comms system, access to planetwide internet, camera, text messaging… original cord charger inside, but battery has been replaced with a flat power cell. Shouldn't need a recharge for at least six years of constant use…"

Following the description of features, how to turn it on, adjust the volume, and basic care, was a list of pictures and what they were. The grey and black icon turned on a camera. The red one was for music (Quill was going to love this, it stored several days' worth of audio, and as I flipped through, I noticed some files were already installed). Green and white was comms. Black and blue was a barcode and squarecode scanner. White with a blue circle was the internet, and a list of other features, including a digital notepad, Terran calendar and clock, and a base ten calculator among about twenty others, had little icons next to them, too. I knew Terran tech had advanced beyond what Quill had from twenty six years ago, but this was genuinely impressive in how far Terrans had come. It still had terrible battery life prior to Yondu's modifications and was easily broken, given the laundry list of warnings, but it was far further than what I was expecting to see.

At the bottom of the instructions, it said the portable computer, known on Terra as a cellphone, (the comms aspect was the primary purpose, I figured, given the name), was essential to getting out of the room. I grinned internally. He was giving us a game to play.

The larger box and the chair made no such promises, but a hasty note on the back of the folder provided the same warning, this time in Kree. The phone must have been for Quill, then, and the folder for myself. The larger box still sat unopened, as Drax didn't want to be the one to disturb its contents.

Quill tapped the folder between his fingers. "I'm letting you open this first, Rocket," he said, passing it to me, and I passed the phone, and its instructions, to him. The folder's front flap had a series of symbols in what I assumed English, but the contents inside were a neat printout, laminated, in Xandarian and Kree. The scientists illegally residing on Halfword had their own language, but I never learned it (they'd remotely disable my translator when they wanted to converse in private in my presence), but at least they did their paperwork in something a little more universal. It looked like my face, all right, but raccoons, as I saw from my research, didn't have too many features to really distinguish themselves. Some had brown fur, others grey or black; some had the black mask on their face go all the way down their nose or down to their chin. The picture had all the markings I had, but definitively saying that it was me wasn't possible. Better than no lead, though.

Said they were from Whole Trading (whole anything my ass), and it didn't seem as though Yondu knew from the paperwork that this particular shipment was being used for testing. My approximate age was listed as 1.5, and the year was 1986 on Terra. A quick bout of head math put my birthday sometime in the fourth month of 1985. I was about twenty-nine then.

A single piece of paper fluttered out with the heading in Kree:

"[1] A Terran and a coon walk into a bar"

followed by a grid with one symbol in each box. I looked up to see Quill plugging his headphones into the comms device sheepishly, and I turned the paper to face him.

"We've got our first clue, I think," I said. Everyone huddled around the paper.

"Looks like a word search. What am I, five?" Peter asked, snatching the paper from my hand. "No, wait, I don't think that's what this is at all. Why don't we clear off lunch, grab some dessert, and knock our heads together?"

I waited for Drax to ask how painful that might be, but realized he'd heard that one before.

Looks like it's time to get to work.

* * *

 

"[1] A Terran and a coon walk into a bar"


	7. On Proper Leverage in Bargaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agents. Why did it have to be agents?

Several arguments, a photograph, and one wicked ice-cream headache later (Quill called this phenomena "brain freeze"), a series of red symbols flashed on the tiny Terran comms device. He read the text out loud, and with a hiss, the door unlocked.

"I hope these puzzles are sorted randomly in difficulty," Quill groaned. "That was unfair."

"Which is true, but I don't think we need to solve these to move on. We could have always just taken off the goggles," Gamora replied.

Quill stuffed the comms in his pants pocket and shrugged. "Well, beats me. Wanna open the last box?"

Drax nodded and Gamora shrugged. I hopped onto the center of the table and used my nails to slice open the adhesive, but the package was too bulky to get my arms around. Groot lifted the lid clean off.

Clothes.

Each was tagged with a name. Gamora's were on top, a large-collared knit top, scarf, light coat, and pants. No shoes. Either the Ravagers had no idea what size she wore, or, more likely, given Yondu's thoroughness, assumed that the shoes she had wouldn't draw undue attention. A small box was also placed inside, containing several bottles of a tannish-brown liquid, some powder, a few sticks of charcoal, and a tube. Gamora opened one carefully and squeezed a few drops of the contents of the bottle on her skin. It dyed the spot the color of sugar that had been cooked too long, a deep brown caramel.

I took a quick look at Gamora. If you squinted, she could pass as a Terran. She was humy build, and, as long as people didn't take a look at her insides, painting her a color Terrans actually had would be enough for her to pass. But the shade was wrong. Shouldn't the makeup have been closer to a peach-white, like Peter's skin? I looked to the side, and noted that Quill had been nonplussed at the color choice, so I supposed Terrans, like Xandarians, who were occasionally hot pink or sun-yellow, came in more colors than he.

"I suppose I will be joining you, once I have turned myself into a Terran," she said wryly, as she carried the clothing and paints to the sleeping quarters, pulling the curtain around them. "I would like to see Peter's reaction when I am done," she added with a small smile to the gaping humy who was probably mentally running through several naughty scenarios of himself and a Terran-Gamora.

"Uh, right…" Peter said, trailing off. "Uh, so what else we got? I don't think there's going to be much we can do to hide Drax or Groot," Peter added, as he fished out a felted coat for himself, trying it on.

The bottom was where we saw the last of it. A plastic jacket, a yellow harness. And a freaking leash.

Oh  ** _hell_**  no.

I reached up to protest, and then felt the strut along my collarbone. The thick, padded harness would probably sit right over that spot, and the jacket would hide the implants…

Peter picked up the jacket intended for me, examining it. "It says SERVICE ANIMAL," he said, simply, and noticed the harness had an ID tag on its carbineer. "ROCKET, RACCOON" he continued to read, "SERVICES FOR THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED: TRAINED TO LIFT AND CARRY BY THE WEST SHORE SERVICE CENTER IN SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA FOR PETER QUILL. PERMITTED FULL ENTRY IN ALL PUBLIC SPACES AND TRANSPORTATION. ADDITIONAL PAPERWORK AVALIBLE UPON REQUEST," Peter finished, as he held up a piece of important looking paperwork with headshots of both myself and Quill, lots of text, barcodes, and other official looking things. Official looking and deliciously fake.

"So that's why there's a wheelchair," I said. "'Cause you're supposed to be dis-abled." I snorted.

Yondu, you brilliant asshole.

"Heck, it even has a phone number, I wonder what happens if we… whoa," Quill added, as a small card fell out between the pages. "Hah, cool. ID. I can buy us some beer." He flashed a grin and showed the three of us the card.

"You need identification to purchase alcohol?" Drax asked curiously, while I snatched up my costume and ducked under the table to change, before admitting defeat with the harness (which I realized needed to go under the jacket).

"Uh… little help here?" I asked, deflated. This was going to feel like an eternity, but at least I'd be a step up from a pet. Some species in the galaxy had hired assistance- that's all I would be. Right. With, you know, the reproductive bits that any species who wear clothes hide before anything else hanging out for the world to see. I puffed out my fur best I could, but still felt horribly self conscious.

Drax squatted down and wordlessly began clipping the harness in place, no comments about my clothing or lack thereof. The fabric was soft and padded, but it still pulled on my shoulders in a way that was almost unberably uncomfortable.

"This was not meant for someone who walks upright with their shoulders shrugged backwards," Drax commented, as he noticed my discomfort. "Is it an annoyance or are you in pain?"

"Just an annoyance, really," I replied through slightly gritted teeth. "Finish up so I can see if it is still a problem when I am on all fours."

Drax let out the straps, anyway, making them as loose as possible without the device slipping, before hooking the plastic jacket with reflective taping around my torso.

"Done. Get on all fours and show me a neutral expression," commented Drax a moment later, seemingly pleased with himself. I complied, stretching myself out and trying to look natural.

"You look like you are planning on removing my fingers with nothing but your teeth," Drax commented. "Calm down… however you do that."

"Groo? /You alright, Rocket?/" Groot cooed overhead. I skittered out from under the table to see Peter already slumped in his moving chair, trying to consider how much of his body to leave limp.

"I know this allows as many of us as possible to stick together, but I feel like Yondu's giving me the short end of the stick here," Peter grumbled.

"An exercise in humility," replied Drax. "I remember as a child members of my classroom blindfolded themselves for a week in solidarity for a female born without sight. Be grateful that you have legs which work."

"Ah, who needs 'em? I can always build Pete here a new pair if they get blown of by Badoon," I snarked, climbing up on Peter's shoulder.

"They better have thruster packs like the ones on my boots," Peter commented, trying to see if he could give himself a lazy eye.

"Thrusters, rocket launchers, RPGs, the works, man." We high fived while Drax and Groot simply placed their heads between their hands, Peter's charade shattered.

"I am Groot. /Seriously, though, Rocket, you need to calm down and act like a…like an animal, or you'll blow your own cover. Remember, Earth's only prior interactions with those from outside have been with the Chitauri- you know they'll be on edge./" Groot started scratching behind my ear, and before I could stop it, a low rumble formed in my throat. Purring. Great. But Groot only nodded in approval, before sneaking a hand to my backside and pulling my tail. I screeched, and almost bit my lip, then snarled angrily at Groot.

"I am Groot. /Sorry, but you're really out of practice./"

"Ugh, whatever, tickle me then," I replied, paws up. I wasn't really annoyed at Groot, everyone knew. If I were, I'd be clawing at him; I knew how much damage he could take. The fact that I was still on Peter's shoulder was my form of approval, because as much as I hate being manhandled, I'm still ticklish. And I start… squeaking. My upper back is mostly numb, from the implants and hairloss, but my armpits and under my chin? I squeal like a…

"Would you boys stop molesting Rocket? People are herd animals and quite stupid. As long as he doesn't talk, he'll be fine," Gamora said, sliding back the curtain to reveal her handiwork.

As Groot unceremoniously dropped me in Peter's lap, I actually, literally felt his heart skip a beat. Humies didn't really categorize as pretty in my book, but apparently Quill found the deep copper skin tone and layered Terran clothing on Gamora attractive. Gamora noticed the reaction, and responded with an eye roll as she tied her hair back.

"Let's just get this over with, I'm not sure how quickly this will rub off."

And that's when I heard the low, deep persistent hum. I quickly removed my headpiece so I could look out the window of the cabin, the real, wooden cabin that wasn't quantum locked.

Low orbit air vehicles. Quill never mentioned Terra having aircraft, but considering the comms device, I wouldn't be surprised if Terra wasn't quite as backwater as Peter's stories made it out to be. I slipped the headset back on.

"Flightcraft, heading this way. How worried should we be?" I asked pointedly.

"Describe them," Drax demanded.

"Kinda oblong, ong tail, a propeller above the center, another smaller one on the tail. Looks to seat six Terrans, plus cargo."

"Helicopters?" Peter said, scrunching his nose. Maybe he wasn't so forthright with his information on Terra, or maybe these vehicles were not a common item.

"I didn't know Terrans had low orbit vehicles," I said, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice, despite the sound from the propellers getting louder by the minute.

"We have, since like, a hundred years ago? But people don't own them, unless they're rich. Unless things have changed, the only people owning choppers are the news, the police, and the Army," Peter replied defensively.

A random civilian stumbling onto the Milano would be an annoyance. We had all the cloaking we thought we needed in place. Peter shot out of his chair, ripping off his headpiece, and looked out of what must have been the windo of the cabin before ducking back into the quantum field.

" ** _Crap_** ," Peter hissed. "Think they're military, because they sure as Odin don't look like reporters. We don't have time to run now, there's like six of 'em and we'll knock one out of the sky running back to the ship to flee. If we stay here in the bunker and they walk into our ship, they might send her to Area 51 or something, and then we're really fucked."

I would ask what Area 51 was at a later time, but now, I had to think fast. Yondu apperantly had been here many times before without issue… maybe some members of the government knew about what was going on and kept mum in exchange for foreign goods? What if Yondu knew of a way to steal back his ship if the Terrans impounded it? Clearly he had a strategy.

I needed to buy us time.

"Quill, get back in your chair, and after you hear my instructions, turn off your translator. I have a plan."

* * *

Eight minutes and forty two seconds by my internal clock, and the wooden door to the cabin was kicked in. A young woman, black hair, pale skin like Peter's in a jacket-and-pant style combat suit akin to Gamora's standard fare with less skin visible clutched a strange looking blaster at her hip. Not pointed out. Good. Ready to draw if needed, but not immediately assuming a threat was present.

"Aliens we mean you no…" the woman started, but faltered mid sentence, face dumbstruck.

"Mind telling me why you're on my property?" Peter demanded. I heard a slight translation delay, meaning he was speaking in English. Good.

"Your… what?" The woman asked quizzically."

"You have a search warrant? Or some kinda override?" Peter's speech was slurred a bit in my ear, and he sounded as he did when drunk.

"This cabin's mine. Or is now. My uncle Danny be-bequ- he left it to me. Said he left behind some of his hunting supplies. So my nurse took me up here to see. And unless you have a warrant, you can fuck off."

The woman flipped and flashed a metal badge from inside a wallet. Peter was right. Military or police. "I don't mean to make a fuss, mister…?"

"Quill. Peter Quill. Rocket? Bring wallet."

I leaned over Peter and awkwardly fished in his coat pocket for the piece of folded leather, holding it up, while Gamora stood to Peter's side, smiling down at me.

"That's… wow. Hi there little guy. Trained raccoon? But you have help."

"They asked me 'n a few others to see how viable they are as an alternative to trained monkeys- cheaper, less invasive in the US. His name is Rocket and don't try petting him when the harness is on. He's working. If you want my ID, hold out your hands, palms up and say 'Rocket, give'."

"I'm Joanie," she said tentatively, as she held out her hands. "Rocket, give."

I dropped the wallet into her hands, then leaned on Quill's head. expectantly.

"Good work, bud," Peter said, and Gamora held out a small sliver of chicken from lunch, which I inhaled. I wasn't hungry, but it definitely did the trick in shutting the Terran up. She leafed through the slab of leather, found the identification card Yondu had provided, and returned it to the sleeve when done.

"Where's your car?" Joanie asked him.

"Do I look like I drive?" Peter started, and I scratched him with my back foot. Gamora could conceivably have driven a Terran groundcar. How Peter managed to keep his stories straight when charming marks is anyone's guess. But, then again, he never had to cover for multiple people at once, and get into character in less time than it took to make lunch. "Uh, well, we walked," Peter provided.

"Mountain's a bit steep for a wheelchair," she replied. This woman was good. Most Nova officers I'd met would have bought the story by now.

"Like I said, this is-was- my uncle's cabin. There's a hidden path, rusted old handrail and all, winding down the backside up here. You can go see for yourself. Used to call it Sledder's Row as a kid because it iced up something nice in winter." Thank Odin Peter was familiar with the area. "Guess you ain't from around here then, which goes double as to why you have business here."

She picked up a black box at her hip. Comms, I assumed. "Hey, Kirby, is there some kind of ramp with a rusty handrail back here?"

"Yeah, why? Though the entrance and exit are hidden really well. If you didn't know the area, you'd never know it was here," crackled a masculine voice from the other end of the line. "And damn, Eaton, you need to see this shi~."

**Click.**

"Ahem," she concluded, giving one last once-over to the three of us. "Your cabin may be yours, and not only do I promise it will not be touched in any way, we will compensate you for your trouble, Mister Quill and Miss…"

"Mora," Gamora replied pointedly. She couldn't speak English any more than I could, but she had her translator on and could at least say a proper noun without suspicion.

"Yes, Miss Mora. The cabin may be yours, but the rest of his hill is public parkland, and we're investigating a brushfire, possible arson. I don't see anything in here that could be the cause- no gasoline, kerosene, or ignition systems, and I will work under the assumption that as this is a hunting cabin, that you're pushing me out due to a lack of proper licensing or ownership of unlicensed firearms, but as long as you say nothing, I don't have any means to convict. I  ** _will_** say that with the region closed off to tourists, and you all have little more than day bags, it would be extremely advisable for you to vacate the area and go back down to town.  **Now**."

"Yes'm," Peter replied. Exactly what we wanted- be guilty of a lesser crime to absolve us of a greater one. We could go down to town, and the local enforcement wouldn't try to pressure us for fear of Peter's retribution, and Drax and Groot could stay behind and observe the military members.

Gamora wheeled Peter's chair to the doorway, and I caught a glimpse of the white bird patch on Joanie's jacket's shoulder. Once we were out of definitive earshot, Quill, Gamora, and I could figure out our next plan.

We had work to do.


End file.
